


Sea Glass

by theorangewitch



Series: Angstober [9]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 20:30:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16249241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theorangewitch/pseuds/theorangewitch
Summary: When she gave birth to her daughter, she did it in a crystalline pool in the middle of the island’s dense jungle, several miles from Tolila’s only town. Not that anyone would’ve helped her had she even been able to ask. The people of Tolila never left the island they were born on, and no one who came stayed long, so they mistrusted those who had seen too much of the outside world.And Keone Marama had seen so much of it.Or so Kai assumed.





	Sea Glass

**Author's Note:**

> Day 9 of Angstober - Neglect. I didn't stay on theme here as much as I would've liked, but what can you do. Fraught mother-daughter relationships are relevant to my interests. This work is also part of a series within a series. I call it the "Daughters holding onto their dying parents" collection. 
> 
> The link to the full Angstober challenge can be found in the author's note of the first work in this series.

The sea never rubbed all of the sharp edges out of Kai Marama. In fact, they probably were responsible for putting them into her. It was that vast blue expanse of void and sorrow that bore her mother, Keone, to the dying island of Tolila where Keone found herself utterly alone. When she gave birth to her daughter, she did it in a crystalline pool in the middle of the island’s dense jungle, more than a mile from Tolila’s only town. Not that anyone would’ve helped her had she even been able to ask. The people of Tolila never left the island they were born on, and no one who came stayed long, so they mistrusted those who had seen too much of the outside world.

And Keone Marama had seen so much of it. 

Or so Kai assumed. In the beginning, it was easier. Tolila’s judgments rolled off of Keone’s back like water, and she poured herself into caring for her daughter. She caught eels and between her toes and speared fish in the curling surf to eat or sell at the tiny market where all eyes lay upon her and judged. She sent her daughter digging on her hands and knees through the sand to find sea glass and shells, which she would sell to sailors as gifts to bring back to their sweethearts on the mainland. And between the two of them, in spite of the people’s scorn, it was enough to get by. Kai would return from the beach to their house on the edge of the forest with her shirt pulled up to hold all of the objects she found, and her mother would ruffle her hair and say, “Oh, Kai-Kai, I am so proud of you.” 

When Kai was six, Keone told Kai that her father was a handsome sailor, just like the men who bought her shells. He had died in a terrible storm, but he had always meant to come back for his wife and daughter. When she was a little older, Kai figured out that this was not the truth, and assumed her father to be a pirate who had died at the hands of wickedly armed soldiers, but this was fine, because pirates were even more romantic than regular soldiers.

The years passed, and Keone and Kai got by, but always on the brink of disaster. When Kai was eight, local youths ransacked their tiny hut, destroying all of their preserves and trade goods and even knocking down the hut itself. That night, and for several nights after, they had to sleep with no shelter, no protection from the storms that frequently pounded across Tolila’s shores. It was only after those nights had passed and the hut had been rebuilt that Kai took the flint knife that her mother used to debone fish and hunted down the boys who had destroyed it. She kicked one so hard that he bruised his ribcage and slashed the other across both cheeks, but they were too ashamed to admit that they’d been injured by an eight-year-old, so they kept the circumstances of their injuries to themselves. 

But in spite of Kai’s willingness to fight back, her mother showed less and less spirit as the years went on. Whenever Kai brought back objects for markets or carved figurines out of driftwood to sell, instead of expressing pride, Keone only said, “This will have to do.”

Keone slept through most of the day, now, leaving Kai to the fishing as well as the collecting. At night, Keone would go for long walks, staring off into the distance as if waiting for something to appear on the horizon. But nothing ever did. Kai didn’t resent her mother’s absence. The woman was a black hole of empathy, and even being in the same house as her waking form sucked the energy from Kai’s body. 

When they were awake at the same time, they fought constantly. 

“Help me!” Kai would shout. “I can’t feed us both on my own! Or better, find us a way off this stupid island!”

“I raised you all on my own!” Keone would shout back. “You have no right to complain!” 

Their fights would end only when Keone went back to sleep or Kai stormed off, to stand up to her knees in saltwater and scream at the sea. “Get me away from here!” she cried until her throat was raw and her words were swallowed by the deafening crash of the waves. All too often “here” came out sounding like “her”. 

By the time she was eleven and had learned more of the world, Kai assumed that her father was no kind of sailor, but that she’d been born out of wedlock to a nameless, faceless man a continent away who cared nothing for any woman, much less Kai or her mother. When Keone had arrived on Tolila, it had been heavily pregnant in a dinghy with nothing but a satchel of clothes and tools and half a loaf of stale bread. What kind of husband would let his wife end up in such a predicament? Kai had asked her mother many times where she’d lived before Tolila, because there was nowhere that could be worse than here, but her mother never answered. 

And then Keone got pregnant again. By a sailor, Kai assumed, though she couldn’t be sure. But even though they didn’t have the resources or support for another child, Kai was glad because the child meant that Keone began to work again. Work so that they could save money  for a ship to the mainland. A ship to a better life. A ship off a dying island where nobody cared if they lived or died, and sometimes actively sought to hurt them.

Their trip to the mainland, to the port city of Gecoci was a cramped and dirty one. Kai was thirteen, and she passed the time thinking that maybe her father was no one at all, that she had been born only from Keone. An abomination against nature. It was almost as fanciful as the pirate idea, but Keone was the only one in the whole world who had created Kai to be the way she was. Kai couldn’t imagine anyone else having any kind of input, no matter how small that input was.

The trip, however, turned disastrous in the second half. Keone caught some kind of sea fever from one of the other passengers, and thus from then on Kai spent the days rubbing her mother’s back as she threw up over the side of the ship and the nights holding back her hair as she threw up into a bucket belowdecks. Keone shivered and shook and clutched at her pregnant belly when she wasn’t vomiting, and Kai sat below her on the floor of the rocking ship, listening to her mother’s whimpers and sometimes. Kai would sometimes reach up to hold her hand, but Keone never let her.

Keone was able to walk again by the time they got to shore, and they used their remaining money to buy a small shack in the densest, poorest section of the city, but Keone never really got better. Some days were better than others, but overall, her condition deteriorated. Kai got a job at the local fishmonger’s, a real job that paid money for the first time in her life, but it was only ever just enough, so she began to pickpocket people to buffer her income.

Keone died mere hours after her second daughter, who died mere hours after being born. It was a hot, humid evening, clouded with mosquitoes and the smell of rotting fish rolling off the docks. Keone let her daughter hold her hand this time, sweating and straining against the terrible fever and the aches that wracked her body, not to mention the labor pains. When the baby was born, she did not cry. She was born as if she was asleep. Keone cradled her in her arms, kissing her forehead and smiling at her the way she used to smile at Kai. “Elikapeka,” she whispered into her cheek. Even after Elikapeka’s labored breathing went quiet and her heart went still, Keone, delirious with fever, continued to cradle her in her arms. She cradled her until Kai lifted up the limp bundle that should’ve been her younger sister and lay her in the cradle that they’d had made in the unlikely eventuality that the child survived. 

After that, Kai crawled into the tiny bed with her mother and stroked her hair, all while Keone murmured sweet nothings into the empty air. As the night pressed on, she leaned over against Kai, pressed their cheeks together, and murmured, “Oh, Kai-Kai, I am so proud of you.” And then she was gone. 


End file.
